Oh dear
Rectangular, black bezel, plain back. Expect a visit from Apple lawyers.
Sneaky Toshiba. A day after saying its thick Thrive tablet is coming to Europe as the AT100, it unveiled a 7.7mm fondleslab, the AT200 - set to ship in the States as the Excite. Toshiba Excite AT200 Android 3.2 tablet It weighs an impressive 558g. It'll be the thinnest laptop… when it ships. Well, maybe - someone else may …
"Toshiba's official release window is Q4, because the AT200 will - like Sony's 3G-enabled Tablet S and Tablet P - run Android 3.2 Honeycomb."
This suggests that Android 3.2 isn't out yet. It's been out for well over a month, my Asus Transformer already has it.
Perhaps El-Reg should invest in something that's not Apple.... I know they will get upset at the Wine Bar round the corner, but if you want to call yourselves a tech site, you ought to know what you are talking about, and have an unbiased opinion and not get swayed by slick advertising.
It's also got a proper keyboard, a better than iPad2 display res, a better than iPad2 pricetag, a better than iPad build quality, better than iPad2 apps and OS, proper USB, Audio and HDMI ports, SD and MicroSD slots,
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1191141
Acer offer such a thing. It runs Windows 7 starter, and I don't see why you couldn't put linux on it. The problems are that Windows 7 isn't really designed for a touch screen interface and you have to tap really precisely to get it to do what you want, and battery life isn't that great.
Windows machines have been about for like 10, 15 years. Clunky, but they've been around.
Alternatively, it's a cludge but when I had a need for exactly this I used RDP / VNC sessions to get access to my main Windows machine. Again, not the best of solutions- but being able to do full 3D CAD on my tablet (a crappy £100-ish chinese thing) really knocked the wind out of the 'check out big-screen Angry Birds!' iPad users! It also has the advantage that you can carry your PC about with you wherever you've got a data connection.
I'm confused about why this article is saying that the release date will be Q4 *because* it will ship with Android 3.2 and so it's down to Google. My Asus Transformer is quite happily running Android 3.2 right now so how exactly is that a cause for delay?
Or was the reference supposed to refer to ICS?
Latest on the Acer Iconia A500 site (acertabletforum.com) says:
"Dear Fans, due to some policy changes from Google where Acer has to comply, the A500 Honeycomb 3.2 OTA update will be postponed to 25th August, we apologize for the dissapointments and upsets but we will be bringing the final and stable update to all of our A500 fans asap! Please be patient guys"
Which the words, "the final and stable update", disturb me a bit, makes one wonder if 4.0 ICS will be supported in the near future.
And then we got this:
"Dear fans, we sincerely apologize for the delayed release of the 3.2 update for Acer Iconia Tab A500. We've just received news today that there have been some issues with the GPS settings therefore the 3.2 update will be rescheduled to 10th of September. We will update again if earlier, we hope to provide all our end users a stable and problem-free OS. Thanks for your continuous support and understanding."
So it's kind of hard telling exactly what the hell is going on either at Google or Acer , not enough information pro or con, although i did hear that Gateway will be selling rebranded iconia tabs shortly, not a bad play for Acer.
It won't run Windows because then it would require an x86 processor, a hard disk, megabytes of ram, cooling fans to stop it melting and a tonne of batteries to keep it all alive for more than five minutes.
Also, Windows has a user interface that sucks on tablets.
Also, also, it *will* run Linux because Android runs on Linux.
ain't AA batteries thicker than these? Will we have a bulge where the batteries go, like some telly remotes?
If we DO have a bulge where they go, can we make those on each side of the screen, so creating a recess that avoids scratching even when facing down? Not that it scratches... but couldn´t it happpen?
It could be even disguised as a handle.
Wait, an '85 walkman knockoff is calling me... see you later.